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What's love got to do with it? Everything, according to Richard Isay's informed and illuminating look at the role of romance in modern gay life. I highly recommend this book for people of any generation and partnership status.--Dean H. Hamer, Ph.D., author of The Science of Desire and The God Gene

""Richard Isay offers something far better than simple bromides and false hope. In this book, he challenges us with a provocative, illuminating, and ultimately hopeful look at ourselves and explains how those of us who yearn to love and be loved (and who doesn't?) can best find happiness and healing in a committed relationship.""--Eric Marcus, author of The Male Couple's Guide and Together Forever

""Many gay men (and others, too) are likely to find this book exceptionally interesting and helpful. In a series of vividly illuminating case histories and with a psychoanalyst's depth and clarity of insight, Richard Isay lucidly explains why gay men have particular difficulty in establishing and sustaining loving relationships and how they might sensibly improve their chances of doing so.""--Harry G. Frankfurt, Ph.D., author of On Bullshit and The Reasons of Love

""Richard Isay's portrayals of gay men's lives are likely to be controversial. Isay is not the stereotypical psychoanalyst who sits quietly while his patients ramble--and we're all the better for that. He has something to say and what he says is worth hearing. This provocative book should be read by anyone who yearns for but hasn't yet found real love.""--William Rubenstein, Founding Director of the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and former Director of the ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights Project

""Based on Dr. Isay's three decades of experience working with gay men in therapy, this is a deeply thoughtful study of the difficulties gay men may experience with falling and staying in love. For a gay man, reading this book may cause him to revisit some dark places along his own life's journey, but it will also give him a glimpse of the self-affirmation and capacity for change that are the goals of gay-positive psychotherapy.""--Simon LeVay, Ph.D., author of Human Sexuality and Queer Science

""Gay people seek the freedom to marry for the same mix of reasons as non-gay people, and for most, love and commitment are central. Drawing on his exceptional expertise and decades of stories from his patients, Richard Isay explores the challenges and value of romantic love--how to overcome our pasts and enrich our present lives at home--as we build a future of greater equality and inclusion in society.""--Evan Wolfson, author of Why Marriage Matters

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From the Inside Flap

In his many years working with gay patients, psychiatrist Richard Isay has found that regardless of the original reasons they seek help, the majority of gay men eventually bring up their problems with romantic love. Some have difficulty falling in love and even more find it hard to sustain a loving, romantic relationship. If you experience these issues in your life, Commitment and Healing offers hope.

Filled with fascinating case histories drawn from Dr. Isay's practice, this compassionate and inspiring book examines how parental rejection or a lack of empathy with the needs of a homosexual child may later on inhibit a gay man's capacity to feel and express his need for love. Some gay men grow habituated to the means they have relied on to seek happiness without intimacy or intimacy without commitment. Many feel unworthy of romantic love or remain unaware of it until midlife.

In Commitment and Healing, Isay writes that a loving relationship over many years is the antidote for the loneliness and the rejection most gay men have experienced in their lives. While the book is a clear and empathetic exploration of the barriers many encounter, Isay shows that it is indeed possible for this generation of gay men to overcome their fear of commitment and learn how rewarding a loving, long-term relationship can be.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Dr. Isay makes some very strong points. I bought this book in response to a recent break up. I found its pages filled with incite into a very strong possible reason for why my recent lover was not able to let me into his heart. I used to think that monogamy was not possible in a gay relationship. I found someone that I wanted to share everything with, exclusively. I now feel that monogamy is possible and Dr. Isay explained some valid and compelling reasons why that should be a goal. I highly recommend this book for anyone that has found something missing in their traditional gay relationships.

OK, so when I came out, I read just about every book on gay relationships and being gay that there was. You should see my book shelves - and the Amazon suggested for you pages were hilarious! "OK you big old queen, here's a few more for you to enjoy!" VERY helpful recommendations, by the way.

So I didn't expect much additional knowledge would come from Richard Isay's book. He's a favorite author, but still. Wow! Was I wrong. He nails it! I discovered so much about myself and my friends in this book! I don't care if you're trying to improve your relationship, trying to have one, or just trying to figure yourself out. This is one important new look at gay men, by a gay psychiatrist. In fact, he's a professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and a faculty member of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, according to Wikipedia.

You'll find yourself thinking, "Oh, that's why" so many times while reading this slim volume. This is a very useful study - get it!

This terrific book makes two sustainable, important, and moving points: that monogamous gay relationships are possible, desirable, and wonderful, and that if a gay man cannot attain nirvana it is because of certain emotional hang-ups he has, which are possibly reversible by looking at oneself through the mirror that Dr. Isay provides. In my opinion the review from Publisher's Weekly cited above is way off the mark. This text is not narrowly but broadly oriented, and it offers real hope and help, far more than just a series of psychoanalytically-based formulations of no use to anyone but the theorist. I highly recommend it to gay men seeking love but having difficulty finding and sustaining it. Martin Kantor, author of "Together Forever: The Gay Man's Guide to Livelong Love. "

This book gave professional insight into gay relationships and their origins and ways to deal with resulting conflicts. Most books have not dealt with such an area. The case histories were also a plus.